


Damsel in disguise

by Teawithmagician



Series: Billy & Goody [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Courtship, F/M, Genderbending, Het, Older Man/Younger Woman, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8806660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: Suddenly, Goody starts to behave in an unusual manner. Billy doesn't stop him though she has a feeling she will regret it. Or won't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> fem!Billy, all the doubtful Goody's remarks are ironical.

1.

Goody brings a box into the suit. “Here,” he says. “I bet you'd like to have a look at it, mon cher.”

Billy opens the box and looks at the silk and laces. She counts in mind not moving her lips already. She doesn't count in Chinese, it's English. Goody insists she speaks English instead. Two languages split your comprehension in two, use one, please.

He says please and he means now you must only speak English. Billy keeps her mouth shut and eyes open. She notices when the speaks her own, she forgets the language for bourbon and cigarettes. For Goody to tell him he has enough and now they pay and leave.

“What's this?” Billy asks.

“It's a dress,” Goody sits at the corner of the bed and outstretches a hand. Billy pulls the pack of cigarettes out of her vest and gives it to him.

“I don't need a dress,” Billy says. That's truth. She dreams of a dress, she envies dresses and she sees the dress in her sleep, but she doesn't really need it. Goody teaches her to write, too, and she has a notebook of her where she writes down all the expenses.

Goody lights a cigarette and makes an obscure gesture towards the box. Billy knows him long enough to understand that means “no, dear, open it and have a look. Looks first, decisions later”. Billy purses her lips and drowns her hand into the silk. It caresses her hand like dove's feather.

“What is this dress for?” Billy asks. She will take the hand out and close the box, but later. Out of the box, it smells like flowers and soap. There's never been soap enough in the railroad camp, there have never been enough flowers.

Billy hasn't ever thought she'd miss flowers someday. She wanted to survive, she wanted no one ever guessed she wasn't really a boy for men's job was paid better than women's. When she killed the foreman, she only wanted to escape, and when she met Goody, she wanted to have as much money as he could arrange.

But there are women out there, in the town. They are wearing beautiful dresses and carrying silk umbrellas, and Goody treats them in the way that makes Billy wish him dead. She wants to stick her iron hairpin deep under his shoulder blade to make him bleed from his mouth. But they have dresses and Billy doesn't, and they look like women while she looks like a boy.

“I don't know how to put it on,” Billy confesses not looking at Goody.

“Well,” gray smoke flies over the bed with a box. “I can help you on with this. I had sisters.”

He has women, Billy thinks jealously. He goes to the houses with red curtains. They are red and plush, and all the women there walk with their breasts lying atop their corsets like apples on a dish. Billy tells Goody if he ever brings a bad illness from one of those houses, she will kill him – they drink from the same flask and smoke same cigarettes.

Goody laughs as though it is a joke, but it isn't. Still, they are in town for a few days, and still Goody hasn't been over the red plush curtains. Maybe he sometimes listens to Billy in the end. Maybe he bears in mind she can break his legs if she wants.

Billy puts both her hands into the silk and the laces. It's pale gray with pale lilac lace. She would look like a bird wearing such a dress. She would be more beautiful than all those women, so Goody would look at her like he looks at them.

2.

“If my lady chooses something, I will let you know,” Goody smiles at the pastry-cook. He smiles in the way that makes you think he will bite you next, and pastry-cook backs off for a moment.

Billy can't take her eyes off the showcase. She sees a girl in a silk gray dress into it, and a man standing behind her back, and he is not going to attack her – he courts her. That must be one of Goody's strange jokes, his sense of humor is weird but Billy enjoys it.

Even if he is kidding her, she is thankful. She can pretend she is a lady, and Sharpshooter Robicheaux courts her. That's the best present she ever has, not mentioning that brand new colt and the double-belt for the knives.

“This,” Billy points her finger at the pastry that looks like a cloud in the rays of morning sun.

“Don't point it out, mon cher,” Goody gently put her hand down. “You wear a dress, consequently you are not a yellow devil no more, you are a Chinese princess. Act like one.”

“I don't give a damn,” Billy responds quietly. “I want this. One. No, two. And chocolate.”

Goody twitches the corner of his lips and makes a gesture to the pastry-cook who begins to move the glass jar at the counter with the cash machine nervously.

“My lady has made her choice, sir. Two millefeuilles and a box chocolate sweets.”

A woman with a light green umbrella passes outside, right behind the window. Billy looks down and wonders if three knives under her skirt will be enough if they get attacked by Domino's boys. It's his territory in the end, but nothing happens.

When the pastry-cook puts the pastry in the boxes and rolls them in thick paper, Billy walks to the doorway and stands in it, looking into the street. Nothing happens. It's just the sun, children playing in the dust, carts driving by. Men don't shoot, women don't scream, Billy can't even see the sheriff.

Goody touches Billy's spine as he approaches. She hears him walking, he limps slightly, his leg must be still aching.

“You want to eat it now I guess.”

“I do.”

Goody is the first to walk down the steps. He offers Billy his elbow, and Billy takes it, putting her hand on his arms. Her head is a bit dizzy. They walk down the street, and Billy raises her head, her chin up like the ladies do. She is no worse than they are. She is wearing a dress and walking down with a man in a suit.

“Why do you do this?” she asks.

“Take It as a form of payment for your services,” Goody responds in a while, and Billy feels a bit disappointed. She knows it has been coming. “I have a sudden thought you would look pretty in a dress and enjoy it. That was the second thought.”

“I'm not a girl, I'm a killer.”

“So do I,” Goody smiles at her. His front teeth are cleaved. “That doesn't actually matter, mon cher.”

3.

Billy eats pastries one by one. They are so sweet, the cook doesn't spare any sugar. The crème comes out, smears on Billy's cheek, but she doesn't care. The chocolate box is open, she bites a pastry and takes one chocolate to make it double.

“So it is a chocolate millefeuille in the end,” Goody says. He smokes at the window, watching Billy eating. Billy never feels uneasy in Goody's presence, she has too much of him, but now she feels his glances with her skin.

Billy doesn't respond. The layers of pastry are crispy, the more she bites, the more crème gets out. She doesn't want to spoil the dress and wipes the crème with her fingers, licking them.

“That must be tasty,” Goody says. “You won't mind if I try some?”

Billy shakes her head. It's their money in the end.

Goody extinguishes the cigarette and throws into the window. The ashtray on the windowsill is already full of stubs. He approaches and puts the box with the second millefeuille from the bed on the chair.

Billy bites the millefeuille again when Goody sits down on the bed and rubs his finger on Billy's cheek, rubbing the crème. He licks his fingers and smacks his lips. “It's exactly as I remember it. Though I am not sure.”

Billy doesn't swallow when Goody takes her face in her arms and kisses her. The rest of the millefeuille melts in her hand. Goody tastes with cigarettes and bourbon a little. He has dry, persistent lips, but he doesn't press too much. That's nice.

“If you want a woman, go and find one,” Billy warns him. “I'm not here to please you.”

Goody is a little bit red. Billy must be red much more than him. Very few men approached her boldly, and they were disgusting and drunk. Billy beat even the smallest thoughts of “taking advantage” - one of the words Goody taught her – of her out of them.

“No, you are not,” Goody agrees slowly. “I thought we have come to an understanding on some matters, Bai Ling.”

Goody isn't disgusting, and he isn't drunk – a bit of bourbon was like coffee for him. He is old and annoying, but also he is funny and handsome. He becomes better when Billy starts to demand he's sober and says the money they gain is not only for fun. Money is for life, a better life – that's what they are for.

“What understanding?” Billy looks at Goody and can't read his face. White people's faces are easy to read, but sometimes Goody becomes like a sheet of paper written in milk – there's something more but you can't see it.

“I need you, Bai Ling. It can be hard to explain. I...”

“No, it's not,” Billy narrowed her eyes. “You are broken, it's a bad idea, you don't believe neither in God or yourself. You told it two moths ago when you were drunk in Tennessee.”

“Do you remember everything I say?” Goody looks amused.

“Yes,” Billy says. There are crisps in Goody's beard, so she kisses him on the chin.


End file.
